Publications as diverse as Smithsonian and Playboy have heralded its return.
The forward-thinking Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, Calif., let its students admire “their sculptural qualities as well as their historical significance” at a recent exhibition.
America’s hottest car company, Chrysler, is considering building one of its own.
The objet d’ trendy? The hot rod.
“What’s happening is that in the last year, hot rods are becoming legitimized,” said Gray Baskerville, senior editor of Hot Rod magazine. “People who never dealt with hot rods in their whole lives have discovered that hot rods are legitimate American art forms.”
The car getting the most attention is the Plymouth Prowler.
The Prowler, which combines ’30s styling with ’90s technology, made its debut at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit last January.
Since then, at car shows and hot rods shows around the country, it has created a stir, said Steve Torok, general manager of the Chrysler-Plymouth Division. “Universally adored” is how Car and Driver described it.
“There are a lot of folks out there who have been writing or calling and saying, `Gee, that’s a car I’d like to drive,’ ” Torok said.
Chrysler hasn’t committed to building the Prowler, but a feasibility study is going on. Torok won’t tip the company’s hand, but a conversation with him is peppered with such phrases as “there are strong arguments for it” and “the pros are pretty strong.”
With the Prowler, Chrysler would create an immediate identity for its Plymouth division just like the Viper sports car created a racy image for its Dodge division.
“Prowler is not a Viper,” Torok said. “It’s something else, but it makes an equally independent statement. It’s clearly an American statement. I don’t think you’ll ever see something like that come out of Europe or Japan.”
Designers of the car, which uses parts found in other Chrysler products, face unique challenges such as using aluminum and meeting safety and lighting requirements. “It stretches automotive technology quite a bit,” Torok said.
If built, the Prowler would likely sell for $30,000. Chrysler has said it would need to build 2,500 to 3,000 to make a profit.
Some Prowler buyers would predictably fit into the “hot rodder grown up” category. But for every kid who grew up tinkering with cars and still does it as a hobby, there are 10 to 15 others who “if they could buy that feeling for a reasonable price would come on board,” Torok said. The Prowler also would likely appeal to younger, affluent buyers who find the RX-7, Supra, Camaro and Firebird a little derivative.
But the Prowler isn’t the only car that has helped move hot rods onto the mainstream.
Last year, Mitsubishi showed off the AlumaCoupe, inspired by a ’30s Ford. CheZoom is based on a ’57 Chevrolet. It was built by Los Angeles rod-builder Boyd Coddington, who also created such masterpieces as the CadZZilla for Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top.
Hot Rod magazine has chronicled the history of American rodding. Such specialty cars as the Prowler get attention in its pages, but there’s lots of technical and how-to information and thorough attention is paid to cars built in garages by people with day jobs.
Baskerville compares hot rods to a tract home. Just as homeowners make improvements and add personal touches to their houses, so do rodding enthusiasts add to their cars.
“We no longer are just waiting for Detroit to build us a car. We do it ourselves,” Baskerville said. “Detroit provides us with the raw material.”
The cars on display at hot rod shows cost their owners from $10,000 to $100,000. On average, most reflect an investment of $30,000 to $40,000.
“That’s because these cars look old on outside but they’re all new,” Baskerville said. “It requires so much time, and time is money. A lot of the guys don’t want to admit how much money they have in their cars because it would scare them.”
Gary Meadors, the president and founder of the GoodGuys Rod and Custom Association that sponsors the Pleasanton, Calif., show, said hot-rod enthusiasts are on the last frontier. Meadors should know. He’s been involved with cars since high school and is redoing his ’32 Ford.
“It’s the last group of cars we can do something to on our own,” he said. Instead of a maze of wires, hoses and computer chips, the hot-rodder can see his carburetor and change his spark plugs when he opens his hood.
Defining a hot rod isn’t easy. Baskerville says his magazine doesn’t apply any age restrictions, which means that any car that has been modified by its owner for better looks or better performance qualifies. GoodGuys, the Alamo, Calif.-based company that puts on the Pleasanton show and 21 others around the country each year, welcomes vehicles built before 1952.
“We still want to capture an era,” Meadors said.
Hot rodding traces its roots to the ’30s, when the boys of Southern California would take modified roadsters to dry lake beds for a bit of derring-do. In the ’50s and ’60s, the creation of Hot Rod magazine and Edd “Kookie” Byrnes’ car seen in “77 Sunset Strip” helped defined the hobby.
While hot rods always have had something of an outlaw image, movies such as “American Graffiti” and TV’s “Happy Days” helped make them less dangerous and more romantic. In fact, many of today’s rodding festivals end up being nostalgic affairs that also commemorate the rock ‘n’ roll of the ’50s and early ’60s.
While cars such as the Prowler might draw the uninitiated to a hot rod show, it’s the variety of machines that helps win converts.
“People who never thought about a hot rod before or have been away from it since high school or college days say that’s kind of neat,” Baskerville said. “They go to a rod run such as Pleasanton and they see the cars they grew up with. . . . Then they say, `Oh my God, I’m going to do one of those.’ “
